The current environment of Russia is certainly disastrous. Such disaster is not to be blamed to others, but to Russia itself. The numerous environmental issues that Russia is facing right now, mainly pollution, are all results of Russia's actions in history. Well known for its Communist regime, Russia was once under the absolute communist ruler Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin, known for his violent and strict policies, felt the need for Russian industrialization. During Stalin's regime, Russia was far behind in technological development due to its long history of socialism, an ideology that strongly opposed the influences of the west. Hoping for Russia's rapid industrialization, Stalin proposed his Five-year plan, which was a plan that focused on rapid consumption and extraction of Russia's resources for rapid production. While Stalin devoted his plans for Russia's industrial development, he did not pay much attention to the environmental consequences that such actions would bring. l
The enormous size of Russia provided a vast amount of natural resources to the Russians, but this led to the Russian's belief of thinking that Russia's land would provide infinite amount of natural resources. They also believed that nature should be used for human's benefits, further supporting the rapid consumption of Russia's resources. As the Five-year plan took place, the Russians, with such beliefs in the Russian land, only focused on production rather than the environment. This led to the destruction of Russia's biomes, severely disturbing the ecosystem as well as destroying its environment, including forests and tundras that cover the majority of Russian land. l
In addition to the destruction of Russia's biomes, Russia's industry heavily focused on industries that primarily involved the usage of fuel and oil source. By burning fuel and oil, the pollution of Russia began. Russia also focused on nuclear industries, as well as weapons and digging metallic minerals. All of these include the production of waste products; harmful, useless leftover materials of the natural resources that are used in production. These waste products added on the issue of pollution. Russia, with the production of massive amount of waste products, discarded them in its neighboring seas, such as the Arctic Ocean. One example is the dumping of nuclear wastes in the Arctic Ocean, which caused the deaths of fish and sea creatures in the Arctic Ocean. Through the pollution of Arctic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean spread even over the the northern Europe, also affecting other countries. l
Pollution is not all of Russia's environmental issues. Russia has a wide range of environmental issues, including the contraction of Aral Sea and fisheries. These issues are almost equally as severe as the issue of pollution. Even within the issue of pollution, different type of pollution exists. Nevertheless, these issues were all created by Russia itself, beginning during the Five-year plan of Stalin. Green Peace Green Peace is a non-governmental environmental organization with over 41 countries involved in it, including Russia. It has been campaigning ever since 1971 when a group of activists actually wanted to do something to help the environment. Due to the immense growth in the number of people, which goes over 2.5 billion people, that became involved with the organization, there is a lot of governmental pressure taking place and keeps them independent. Their primary goal is to protect the environment in every form, which means that they try to prevent the pollution of air, water, and the land. They also strongly oppose nuclear threats and contamination. Instead of trying to accomplish such things in radical and forceful ways, they try to protect the environment and persuade others to do so too by peaceful and non-violent means.
Russia first became a part of Greenpeace in 1989, when David McTaggart, a Canadian environmentalist, sent a music album of tracks recorded by 24 top rock bands to Moscow, greeting them and telling them about Greenpeace. McTaggart told the Soviet Union of how the album could help in spreading the idea of building a safe and clean environment. The sales of this album spread all across Russia, reaching over a million sales in a little over a month. In the July of the same year, it was formally decided that the Greenpeace USSR would be established.
Up to now, there have been many achievements that Greenpeace has, such as saving Baikal lake from being polluted with oil by pressuring the government to remove an oil pipe line. With the organization growing larger and larger, Russia could work towards a cleaner future. Oil Pollution
Oil pollution in Russia is almost always associated with oil spills. There have devastating effects on the environment and the ecosystem. Thousands of birds die after a single spill and destroys the habitat of thousands more. Oil spills poison the fauna of the area and are responsible for many endangered animals. When oil spills in a ocean or a body of water, it can cause great problems; it will destroy the ecosystem: from fish to bird to plants. It is important to remever that once a spill occurs, it is rather a long term problem; the oil is hard to clean up and it takes a tremendous efforts and time to do so. Also, it is hard to revive the damaged ecosystem. The damage to Komi, the site of a 1994 accident in which 33.6 million gallons of oil flooded into the fragile tundra is a good example for this. l For Russia, it is a chronic problem, caused by widespread neglect, lack of control and outdated equipment. The main causes of these oil spills are old and corroded pipelines, which are not maintained and not replaced in time. These leaks occur only when a pipeline breaks and spills oil. Unlike in other countries, they do not monitor the pipelines, maintain them, or replace them immediately when they start to corrode.Currently, many multinational oil companies such as British Gas, whose oil pollutes the tundra, are not taking part in the clean up . Companies do not think about environmental safety at all. l
The attempts by the Russian government to play down the seriousness of the country's environmental problems is worsening the situation. The state no longer gives priority to solving Russia's ever mounting ecological disasters such as countless oil spills in Arctic Russia and Siberia. The Russian leadership thinks that only rich countries can afford to deal with environmental problems. However, this will eventually lead to the disaster and Russia will be confronted with the results. The environmental movement now wants to hold a nation-wide referendum, to prove to the government that the Russian people are really worried about the state of the environment and demand immediate action. Pollution At Norilsk
Norilsk is a major city of Russia, and is also one of the world's most polluted city. Norilsk currently produces the most nickel and palladium, as well as other metallic minerals such as copper coal, cobalt. The mining of these metallic minerals began when the Putoran Mountain was discovered. Originally used as a labor camp for Siberian slaves, the city of Norilsk soon became to be utilized as a mining city for the metallic minerals in the Putoran Mountains. At first, the Serbian slaves mined the metallic minerals, but many of them began to die due to cold temperatures, lack of food, and many of other health issues. As these metallic minerals were mined, the contamination began; with the releasing of sulphur dioxide, causing smog and acid rains. More and more metallic minerals were mined, and as a result, Norilsk became more polluted.
l
The severity of pollution at Norilsk can be shown by its demography. Due to the pollution of air, the average life expectancy of the people in Norilsk is lower than 10 years than other humans at the least. Also, the pollution also causes illnesses especially related to respiratory system, because the air is so polluted. Thus, the more vulnerable younger humans end up dying due to throat respiratory disease, and 15.8 % of children death in Norilsk is due to respiratory disease. Because these issues became even worse, the city, at one point, was closed for visitors, and even the citizens living in the city due to its severe pollution. No tress exist within the 48 km boundary, as for the soil and air are polluted, not enabling trees to grow within the range of pollution.l To clean up this mess of air pollution, Russia is working to reduce its sulphur dioxide discharge. Russia spent about more than 1.4 million dollars for gas removal systems. The situation of pollution at Norilsk can be about the worst level of pollution on Earth; with its level of pollution so high, no human beings can survive with healthy body. However, although the severity of pollution is at is peak, Russia is trying hard to restore the city, investing money for reparations. Nuclear Pollution Nuclear pollution is one of the most important and dangerous types of pollution. It is produced by nuclear explosion which are carried out for performing nuclear tests and which is used fro making nuclear weapons. This explosion causes about 15 to 20% of the radioactive particles to continuously fall on the earth for about every 6 month. The smaller particles or fallout produced by the after the explosion or blast effects the leaves of the plant and damaging the tissue leaf. Their leaves are ingested by grazing animals and other living organisms that are eaten by other animals and eventually by human, following the food chain. In Russia, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion became a symbol for nuclear pollution. It had a huge effect around the area including to the north of Kiev and to the north in Belarus. The winds carried the radioactive gases in different directions. In Ukraine, over 1.5 million people were affected and 10 percent of them were severely radiated. The Russian government was not able to react efficiently straight away; local death rate increased because the evacuation of the inhabitants after the explosion was delayed. Also, although 600000 members of the cleanup team suffered minor illnesses, many areas such as Urals are still on the list of the most polluted areas of the CIS with nuclear contamination. Aral Sea Contraction
Now a part of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the currently drained Aral Sea used to be the primary source of water for agriculture. The Aral Sea is heavily dependent of the flowing water from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers; the two rivers that carry the meltwater of its neighboring mountain ranges. Its neighboring mountain ranges include the Hindu Kush and the Tian Shan, which are both higher than 7000 m., have snow that melt during spring. The meltwater of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers meet at one basin, forming the Aral Sea. The early Aral Sea used to be much bigger than it is right now.
(A video telling a story of how Aral Sea became today's Aral Sea)
The contraction of the Aral Sea began as the Soviet gained control of the Aral Sea region. The Soviet, filled with ambitions to use the Aral Sea to gain profit and development in its economy, ended up overusing the precious water source of the Aral Sea basin. The water was used for the cotton farms, requiring vast amount of water. Ignoring the dangers of such extraction of large amount of water, the Soviet continued to extract water from the Aral Sea for cotton farming. This eventually ended up in using too much water of the Aral Sea that it reached a point where the two rivers, Amu Darya and Syr Darya, stopped flowing meltwater into the Aral Sea basin. Thus, the Aral Sea, with its main sources of water cut off, began to rapidly shrink in size. The Aral Sea contraction was a entirely man-made catastrophe, due to the over usage of its valuable water. Because it had shrinked to less than one third of its original size, it is so hard to rehabilitate. The World Bank had built a dam for the Aral Sea to recover its size, but it is taking a long time for the water to build up to fill its original size. Sources
Overview
The current environment of Russia is certainly disastrous. Such disaster is not to be blamed to others, but to Russia itself. The numerous environmental issues that Russia is facing right now, mainly pollution, are all results of Russia's actions in history. Well known for its Communist regime, Russia was once under the absolute communist ruler Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin, known for his violent and strict policies, felt the need for Russian industrialization. During Stalin's regime, Russia was far behind in technological development due to its long history of socialism, an ideology that strongly opposed the influences of the west. Hoping for Russia's rapid industrialization, Stalin proposed his Five-year plan, which was a plan that focused on rapid consumption and extraction of Russia's resources for rapid production. While Stalin devoted his plans for Russia's industrial development, he did not pay much attention to the environmental consequences that such actions would bring.
l
The enormous size of Russia provided a vast amount of natural resources to the Russians, but this led to the Russian's belief of thinking that Russia's land would provide infinite amount of natural resources. They also believed that nature should be used for human's benefits, further supporting the rapid consumption of Russia's resources. As the Five-year plan took place, the Russians, with such beliefs in the Russian land, only focused on production rather than the environment. This led to the destruction of Russia's biomes, severely disturbing the ecosystem as well as destroying its environment, including forests and tundras that cover the majority of Russian land.
l
In addition to the destruction of Russia's biomes, Russia's industry heavily focused on industries that primarily involved the usage of fuel and oil source. By burning fuel and oil, the pollution of Russia began. Russia also focused on nuclear industries, as well as weapons and digging metallic minerals. All of these include the production of waste products; harmful, useless leftover materials of the natural resources that are used in production. These waste products added on the issue of pollution. Russia, with the production of massive amount of waste products, discarded them in its neighboring seas, such as the Arctic Ocean. One example is the dumping of nuclear wastes in the Arctic Ocean, which caused the deaths of fish and sea creatures in the Arctic Ocean. Through the pollution of Arctic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean spread even over the the northern Europe, also affecting other countries.
l
Pollution is not all of Russia's environmental issues. Russia has a wide range of environmental issues, including the contraction of Aral Sea and fisheries. These issues are almost equally as severe as the issue of pollution. Even within the issue of pollution, different type of pollution exists. Nevertheless, these issues were all created by Russia itself, beginning during the Five-year plan of Stalin.
Green Peace
Green Peace is a non-governmental environmental organization with over 41 countries involved in it, including Russia. It has been campaigning ever since 1971 when a group of activists actually wanted to do something to help the environment. Due to the immense growth in the number of people, which goes over 2.5 billion people, that became involved with the organization, there is a lot of governmental pressure taking place and keeps them independent. Their primary goal is to protect the environment in every form, which means that they try to prevent the pollution of air, water, and the land. They also strongly oppose nuclear threats and contamination. Instead of trying to accomplish such things in radical and forceful ways, they try to protect the environment and persuade others to do so too by peaceful and non-violent means.
Russia first became a part of Greenpeace in 1989, when David McTaggart, a Canadian environmentalist, sent a music album of tracks recorded by 24 top rock bands to Moscow, greeting them and telling them about Greenpeace. McTaggart told the Soviet Union of how the album could help in spreading the idea of building a safe and clean environment. The sales of this album spread all across Russia, reaching over a million sales in a little over a month. In the July of the same year, it was formally decided that the Greenpeace USSR would be established.
Up to now, there have been many achievements that Greenpeace has, such as saving Baikal lake from being polluted with oil by pressuring the government to remove an oil pipe line. With the organization growing larger and larger, Russia could work towards a cleaner future.
Oil Pollution
Oil pollution in Russia is almost always associated with oil spills. There have devastating effects on the environment and the ecosystem. Thousands of birds die after a single spill and destroys the habitat of thousands more. Oil spills poison the fauna of the area and are responsible for many endangered animals. When oil spills in a ocean or a body of water, it can cause great problems; it will destroy the ecosystem: from fish to bird to plants. It is important to remever that once a spill occurs, it is rather a long term problem; the oil is hard to clean up and it takes a tremendous efforts and time to do so. Also, it is hard to revive the damaged ecosystem. The damage to Komi, the site of a 1994 accident in which 33.6 million gallons of oil flooded into the fragile tundra is a good example for this.
l
For Russia, it is a chronic problem, caused by widespread neglect, lack of control and outdated equipment. The main causes of these oil spills are old and corroded pipelines, which are not maintained and not replaced in time. These leaks occur only when a pipeline breaks and spills oil. Unlike in other countries, they do not monitor the pipelines, maintain them, or replace them immediately when they start to corrode.Currently, many multinational oil companies such as British Gas, whose oil pollutes the tundra, are not taking part in the clean up . Companies do not think about environmental safety at all.
l
The attempts by the Russian government to play down the seriousness of the country's environmental problems is worsening the situation. The state no longer gives priority to solving Russia's ever mounting ecological disasters such as countless oil spills in Arctic Russia and Siberia. The Russian leadership thinks that only rich countries can afford to deal with environmental problems. However, this will eventually lead to the disaster and Russia will be confronted with the results. The environmental movement now wants to hold a nation-wide referendum, to prove to the government that the Russian people are really worried about the state of the environment and demand immediate action.
Pollution At Norilsk
Norilsk is a major city of Russia, and is also one of the world's most polluted city. Norilsk currently produces the most nickel and palladium, as well as other metallic minerals such as copper coal, cobalt. The mining of these metallic minerals began when the Putoran Mountain was discovered. Originally used as a labor camp for Siberian slaves, the city of Norilsk soon became to be utilized as a mining city for the metallic minerals in the Putoran Mountains. At first, the Serbian slaves mined the metallic minerals, but many of them began to die due to cold temperatures, lack of food, and many of other health issues. As these metallic minerals were mined, the contamination began; with the releasing of sulphur dioxide, causing smog and acid rains. More and more metallic minerals were mined, and as a result, Norilsk became more polluted.
l
The severity of pollution at Norilsk can be shown by its demography. Due to the pollution of air, the average life expectancy of the people in Norilsk is lower than 10 years than other humans at the least. Also, the pollution also causes illnesses especially related to respiratory system, because the air is so polluted. Thus, the more vulnerable younger humans end up dying due to throat respiratory disease, and 15.8 % of children death in Norilsk is due to respiratory disease. Because these issues became even worse, the city, at one point, was closed for visitors, and even the citizens living in the city due to its severe pollution. No tress exist within the 48 km boundary, as for the soil and air are polluted, not enabling trees to grow within the range of pollution. l To clean up this mess of air pollution, Russia is working to reduce its sulphur dioxide discharge. Russia spent about more than 1.4 million dollars for gas removal systems. The situation of pollution at Norilsk can be about the worst level of pollution on Earth; with its level of pollution so high, no human beings can survive with healthy body. However, although the severity of pollution is at is peak, Russia is trying hard to restore the city, investing money for reparations.
Nuclear Pollution
Nuclear pollution is one of the most important and dangerous types of pollution. It is produced by nuclear explosion which are carried out for performing nuclear tests and which is used fro making nuclear weapons. This explosion causes about 15 to 20% of the radioactive particles to continuously fall on the earth for about every 6 month. The smaller particles or fallout produced by the after the explosion or blast effects the leaves of the plant and damaging the tissue leaf. Their leaves are ingested by grazing animals and other living organisms that are eaten by other animals and eventually by human, following the food chain.
In Russia, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion became a symbol for nuclear pollution. It had a huge effect around the area including to the north of Kiev and to the north in Belarus. The winds carried the radioactive gases in different directions. In Ukraine, over 1.5 million people were affected and 10 percent of them were severely radiated. The Russian government was not able to react efficiently straight away; local death rate increased because the evacuation of the inhabitants after the explosion was delayed. Also, although 600000 members of the cleanup team suffered minor illnesses, many areas such as Urals are still on the list of the most polluted areas of the CIS with nuclear contamination.
Aral Sea Contraction
Now a part of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the currently drained Aral Sea used to be the primary source of water for agriculture. The Aral Sea is heavily dependent of the flowing water from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers; the two rivers that carry the meltwater of its neighboring mountain ranges. Its neighboring mountain ranges include the Hindu Kush and the Tian Shan, which are both higher than 7000 m., have snow that melt during spring. The meltwater of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers meet at one basin, forming the Aral Sea. The early Aral Sea used to be much bigger than it is right now.
(A video telling a story of how Aral Sea became today's Aral Sea)
The contraction of the Aral Sea began as the Soviet gained control of the Aral Sea region. The Soviet, filled with ambitions to use the Aral Sea to gain profit and development in its economy, ended up overusing the precious water source of the Aral Sea basin. The water was used for the cotton farms, requiring vast amount of water. Ignoring the dangers of such extraction of large amount of water, the Soviet continued to extract water from the Aral Sea for cotton farming. This eventually ended up in using too much water of the Aral Sea that it reached a point where the two rivers, Amu Darya and Syr Darya, stopped flowing meltwater into the Aral Sea basin. Thus, the Aral Sea, with its main sources of water cut off, began to rapidly shrink in size.
The Aral Sea contraction was a entirely man-made catastrophe, due to the over usage of its valuable water. Because it had shrinked to less than one third of its original size, it is so hard to rehabilitate. The World Bank had built a dam for the Aral Sea to recover its size, but it is taking a long time for the water to build up to fill its original size.
Sources
"BBC NEWS | Europe | Negligence blamed in sub tragedy ." BBC NEWS | News Front Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3195195.stm>.
"Black Sea Oil Spill Effects to Last for Decades | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 13.11.2007." Home | Deutsche Welle. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2010. <http://www.dw world.de/dw/article/0,,2907345,00.html>.
"Black Sea oil spill blamed on Russia's lax standards / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com ." The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. <http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1115/p01s07-woeu.html>.
"Devastation from Russian Oil Spill." Site has moved. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. <http://archive.greenpeace.org/majordomo/index-oldgopher/9505/msg00009.html>.
"Oil Spills in Russia." Corrosion science and engineering information hub. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2010. <http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Pollution/oil-pipes-example-3.htm>.
Velinov, Ivan. "Epoch Times | Russian Oil Spill Devastates Black Sea Ecology." Epoch Times - National, World, China, Sports, Entertainment News. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. <http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-11-14/61936.html>.
"8. Norilsk, Russia."SuperGreenMe - Green Social Network, Eco Living Tips, Video, Reviews, News. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. <http://www.supergreenme.com/go-green-environment-eco:8--Norilsk--Russia>.
"Aral Sea Catastrophe."Newswire. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. < http://www.i-newswire.com/releases/aral-sea-catastrophe>.
"Mines and Communities: Hell on Earth - Norilsk in Russia ."Mines and Communities: Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. <http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=1409>.
Bradshaw, Michael J., Elizabeth Chacko, Joseph Dymond, and George White. Contemporary World Regional Geography. 3Rev Ed ed. New York: Mcgraw Hill Higher Education, 2008. Print.
"Home | Greenpeace Russia." Greenpeace | Greenpeace USA. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. <http://www.greenpeace.org/russia/en/>.
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